Striking a Match: Developing a Remote-Mentoring Program for College Students with Disabilities Lisa Elliot & James McCarthy Deaf and Hard of Hearing Virtual Academic Community (DHHVAC) Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf (RIT/NTID), Center on Access Technology Postsecondary Disability Training Institute Conference, Philadelphia PA June 10, 2016 Session objectives You will learn about the: - Deaf and Hard of Hearing Virtual Academic Community (DHHVAC), and why it includes mentorship functions - Basic functions of mentorship, with a focus on matching Who We Are Deaf STEM Community Alliance - Only Alliance specifically for D/HH students - Supported by the National Science Foundation, HRD #1127955 - Multi-year project (Sept 2011- Aug 2017) — Now in our 5th year Campus Partners - Cornell University - Camden County College - RIT/NTID — RIT is the lead institution for this project, with Camden County College and Cornell University as partners. Goal and Objectives - Goal: — Create a model virtual academic community to increase the graduation rates of postsecondary D/HH STEM majors in the long term - Iterative and incremental (Cockburn, 2008) — Iterative – testing what works and revising what doesn’t — Incremental – building model in stages instead of all at once Goal and Objectives Objectives 1) Document and disseminate a description of the process of creating a model VAC for replication 2) Increase the GPAs and retention rates of D/HH students in STEM majors What are the challenges? Barriers to success in STEM > Lower retention > Lower graduation > Fewer STEM professionals Barriers to success Venn diagram: Student preparation, Socialization, Accessible media A vicious circle Insufficient D/HH representation in STEM professions > D/HH professionals providing support and role modeling are few and far between > Lack of support causes D/HH students to change majors or drop out > Back to beginning of cycle How DHHVAC is helping - This model that offers academic and vocational support by: — Facilitating remote tutoring and mentoring — Developing an online community of practice between students, tutors, and mentors - Mentoring in the DHHVAC: From published literature to practical application DHHVAC Model 
Barriers & Strategies - Student preparation — Remote tutoring — Remote mentoring — Using G+ Hangouts - Socialization — Remote mentoring — Peer-to-peer interaction — Using G+ private community and Facebook secret groups - Accessible media — Accessible STEM information using Website, G+ private community, Facebook secret group, and G+ Public page DHHVAC e-mentoring model - Mentors are few, far between, and busy — Solution: remote mentoring (de Janasz & Godshalk, 2013) — ‘Go where the mentees are’: online (Evans & Forbes, 2012) - Scalable, affordable, and adaptable — Modular, open-source, and applicable to a wide variety of population groups and organizational structures Mentorship functions - Support (Ensher, Heun, & Blanchard, 2003) — Career development (academic/vocational) — Personal development - Role modeling Career development in the DHHVAC - Both school- and job-related - Case-specific — Assignments; projects; documents - Successful cases tend to be related to this type of support - Occasionally blurs into role-modeling — Interaction with co-workers and colleagues Personal development in the DHHVAC - More likely in informal, spontaneous mentoring relationships - Culture of professionalism - ‘Weak-tie’ relationships presents an additional challenge in e-mentoring (Shpigelman, Weisee, & Reiter, 2009) — More like neighbors or service providers (e.g., doctors or bank tellers) than friends Role modeling in the DHHVAC - Effect on mentoring relationship — Student may be overwhelmed or hesitant — Student may be proud to correspond - Effect of computer-mediated communication (Ensher, Heun, & Blanchard, 2003) - Traditional mentors as role models have a positive effect on eventual job satisfaction for mentees (Ensher, Thomas, & Murphy, 2001) — As opposed to peer or step-ahead mentors The DHHVAC mentors - Selected from a broad range of disciplines — Accounting, animal science, architecture, biology, biochemistry, biophysics, bioengineering, biotechnology, civil engineering, ecology, industrial engineering, information technology, materials science, structural engineering, user-experience design, Web development - Recruited through a variety of channels — Professional Facebook group for deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) STEM professionals — Alumni Association — Word of mouth — Previous participants in other roles (e.g., participating student) - About half are RIT/NTID alumni; all are volunteers Mentorship coordinator - Recruits mentors and mentees - Matches mentor/mentee dyads - Develops and documents program structure and processes — Roles — Expectations — Facilitation (Single & Single, 2005) - Adapts to new technological solutions and implements as needed - Responds to mentor/mentee concerns and seeks solutions From greeting to welcome - Application — Basic demographic information, academic background, work history, consent - Background check — RIT’s HR department investigates suitability for working with students - DHHVAC account and profile setup — Google Apps for Education—Custom domain — Gmail, Google+, Google Drive — Invitations to Google+ private community and Facebook group From greeting to welcome - Mentors are automatically assigned to new student participants — Considers student’s major and mentor’s occupation - Student request — Often a result of a change in academic focus, or for specific projects - Growing a pool — Accepting volunteers to hedge against future requests/new participants Striking a match - Two components (Dawson, 2014) - Selection — Mentors: Self-selection; interpersonal; mentee request — Mentees: Self-selection; instructor recommendation; tutor recommendation - Matching — Mentee choice — Vocational similarity — Fine-grained within engineering-related fields — Demographic similarity Vocational similarity in the DHHVAC - Importance varies; affected by mentee choice — Case study: Student declines mentoring — Case study: Student shops for mentors - Cross- or multidisciplinary mentoring — Second case study above — Mentors for undeclared students Demographic similarity in the DHHVAC - A new wrinkle: Communication preference -Another new wrinkle: Technology adoption (Williams, Sunderman, & Kim, 2012) — Case study: Glide -Suggests cross-cultural competence may be a strong indicator of successful matches (Merriweather & Morgan, 2013) Introductions - First contact facilitated by DHHVAC staff, ideally — Basic information about each party — Suggestions for initial and future discussions — Request for reports of contact Maintenance - Monthly check-in — E-mail to all mentors with requests for feedback or reports of contact — Suggestions for discussion — Encouragement to keep lines of communication open - Communication methods — E-mail strongly preferred by mentors/mentees — Video chats via Google Hangouts and Skype Maintenance Ongoing: Contact log [Image of spreadsheet laid out as sample contact log; headers are “Mentor name,” “Student name,” “Date of contact,” “Method of contact (E-mail? Hangout? Text? Other?),” “Synchronous length of contact,” and “Topic(s) of discussion”] Collaborations and accomplishments - Architecture — Architect and student corresponded on redesign of NTID lobby and associated spaces - Engineering — Student corresponded with two mentors (industrial design and biotechnology) to develop a project for an annual innovation competition - Biology — Mentor named one of NPR’s “50 Greatest Teachers" From One to Many [Graphic of a sample post from Google+, highlighting the post itself, +1s, and additional comments, accompanied by text reading: “This is an example of a post within the private community.”] Benefits - Individual — Intergenerational continuity — Future collaborative relationship development — Number of colleagues in the field increases - Institutional — Alumni maintain relationship with alma mater — Increased academic performance within a cohort — Increased retention rates within underrepresented populations — Increased graduation rates Conclusions - Underrepresented populations need effective role models - Individual students may need individual support - Mentorship is one solution - The DHHVAC is a model that attempts to implement this solution - Matching is key to the program’s success — Far more complicated than it appears - Intergenerational cooperation and support can further personal and institutional progress Questions? Comments? Contact information: Lisa Elliot, PI lisa.elliot@rit.edu James McCarthy, DHHVAC Manager jkmnod@rit.edu http://www.dhhvac.org Select References Cockburn, A. (2008). Using both incremental and iterative development. Crosstalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering, (May 2008), 27-30. Dawson, P. (2014). Beyond a definition: Toward a framework for designing and specifying mentoring models. Educational researcher, 43, 137-145. Ensher, E., Heun, C., & Blanchard, A. (2003). Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research. Journal of vocational behavior, 63, 264-268. Ensher, E., Thomas, C., & Murphy, S. (2001). Comparison of traditional, step-ahead, and peer mentoring on Protégés’ support, satisfaction, and perceptions of career success: A social exchange perspective. Journal of business and psychology, 15, 419-438. Evans, R.R., & Forbes, L. (2012). Mentoring the ‘Net generation’: Faculty perspectives in health education. 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